Netboot: HTTP vs. NFS – pros and cons?

[Anonymous]

I’m new to Netboot. I’m setting up a Xserve G5 (running 10.3 Server 10-client license) to netboot about 15 other Xserve G5’s (and provide DHCP).

When setting up the boot image file, I need to choose either HTTP or NFS for sharing the image file. What are the advantages or disadvantages of either? I haven’t been able to find any information on this in either the “System Image Admin” guide or elsewhere.

These machines are all on their own 24 port gigabit ethernet switch, so there are no other extenuating network issues.

Thanks for any feedback.

[sbjordal]

[quote:540f969066=”msb”]I’m new to Netboot. I’m setting up a Xserve G5 (running 10.3 Server 10-client license) to netboot about 15 other Xserve G5’s (and provide DHCP).

When setting up the boot image file, I need to choose either HTTP or NFS for sharing the image file. What are the advantages or disadvantages of either? I haven’t been able to find any information on this in either the “System Image Admin” guide or elsewhere.

These machines are all on their own 24 port gigabit ethernet switch, so there are no other extenuating network issues.

Thanks for any feedback.[/quote:540f969066]

In my experience, NFS yields must faster restores using Netrestore than HTTP does. There is also an Apache 1.3 size limit of 2 GB when using HTTP

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